Darden Phone Interview - Adcom

fisherrui

Good question but unfortunetly I am not that experienced with MBA interviews to provide you with an insightful answer.  My guess is that Darden interviews (with admissions committee) are setup to see if you could contribute to in class discussions and willing to express your opinions in an articulate and logical way. 

A friend of mine who is interviewing MBA candidates for his alma mater this year told me that he looks for confidence and an interesting conversation aside from the list of required questions that he was suppose to ask.  Also, a candidates resume bears a overwhelming weight.  If you have all the hardware then most likely he will put in a good word unless you piss him off during the interview.  What does the word "interesting" means?  I am not sure.  So I guess an interview with an alumnus could have infinite possibilities since every alumnus is different. 

I have conducted numerous job interviews and alot of times I decided to hire a person or not during the first minute.  So it is very important to start off with a good first impression no matter if you are on the phone or in person.  Talk about something interesting outside of the interview topic and lead into the interview with a laugh is the best way to start in my opinion. 

    
Hope this helps.